A note of warning for this blog: it’s very much “internal” news and focused on our own developments. We’re not going after some huge readership here with any particular views or commentary. If you’re not involved with Splashpress, in fact…even if you are-:), you’re likely to find all the posts in this blog pretty dull.

@ Performancing Marketplace. Here users can buy and selldomains, blogs, blogging-related tools, themes, blog services, software and the like. The feedback we have been getting from those who were previously happy trading at Sitepoint is that there is a real need for this in the blogging community, and one that Flippa has failed to satisfy. The opening of this blogging marketplace was announced just 10 days ago, so it’s still very much in beta mode!

@ Performancing Hive is set for a relaunch after some time in hibernation. Luckily, there are still many active users there (including some notable a-listers). Do grab the opportunity to sign up for free using 093588648A as the coupon code- it will expire on December 11th. There are lots of great plans in the works including quite a few useful blog-related freebies for members!

“Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, Youtube. The Internet is changing the way we communicate, work, and live. And that is not referred to big players alone. Think about blogs that are already competing head to head with mainstream media; or people that are generating thousands of dollars with personal websites. You can reach literally the whole world without leaving your bedroom.
That is what Daily Bits is about. From software to Web 2.0, from online marketing to social networks and open source. In simple words, your daily dose of Internet and technology!”

* After quite some time (as all quality projects demand!), we have released our first premium WordPress theme: Rogue Theme. Undoubtedly behind the curve in terms of an over-saturated market, we feel that this one was worth the wait- especially if you are looking for a magazine-type or news-related WP theme, with full support. Developed by Thord Hedengren, what makes this premium theme different from others you will see around is the neat plugin that comes with it: Roguelines. There are multiple Roguelines areas– you can have several headlines for various parts of your site; you can add Rogueline data to any post within admin using the Roguelines box on the “write and edit” post page. And you have full control of the HTML code that is outputted before and after each Rogueline area, as well as before and after each element within.

There are also two default widget areas in the Rogue Theme: the headline area under the header on the blog’s front page. And the right hand sidebar (automatically filled with some default stuff). Either one of them can be populated by whatever widget you want to use. This means that you could, for instance, use the Roguelines plugin to fill the headline area on the top of the front page, as well as have it in the sidebar. You could use the built-in widgets that comes with WordPress, or install plugins on your own to create whatever type of setup you like. As we are still looking to officially launch Rogue Theme soon, we are looking to build some featured samples using the theme- at the site. So if you’d like a free version and to save on the license fees, please contact Ali Hussain (who will be supporting the theme) and he will send it to you.

I’d also like to extend my personal thanks to all our partners– we couldn’t have gotten this far without your help!

* No doubt Paul will want to implement many changes to Splashpress Media over the coming times (you can be sure for the better!). But here are some plans currently in the works:

@ An iPhone app for our blogs, which will load the RSS feeds from our top blogs. There will be navigational buttons on the stories, so that the user can jump to the next/previous one and also go back to the listing. On the app home screen, there will be a reload button to fetch the latest items from the RSS feed and an info box that can be reached from the app home screen. What will make this app especially innovative is the category browsing through the bottom menu, where it will be possible to read and post comments, along with the integration with other apps and social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, etc).

@ We’re about to release a seriously funky RSS widget application called SourceBeat. It is a flash-based tool that allows users to add vertically scrolling news, events, announcements, press releases and other content from any RSS feed to the sidebars of their blogs.

Last, but not least- a special thank you to you, dear readers, who have put up with these long-winded, inward looking posts for all this time! Anybody who is still reading this post deserves at least some fine scotch…so drop us a line and we’ll see what we can do for you!